


The Football Jersey

by olivewithwings



Category: Wyvern & Charge
Genre: Love/Hate, M/M, Mostly Hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 17:30:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17390603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivewithwings/pseuds/olivewithwings
Summary: Avery's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day is made exponentially worse by Jamie Prescott.





	The Football Jersey

It all started Friday morning.

Like any other day, Avery was trudging to school through the October morning chill. His plan was the same as always, to plod through the day until the last bell released him. All he wanted to do was make it through the day, unnoticed until he could go home.

But the universe, specifically one particularly annoying aspect of the universe, had different plans for him.

Avery was a mere four feet from the front door when he was nearly bowled over by an overexcited quarterback.

“Avery!” Jamie yelped, grabbing the shorter boy by the shoulders to keep him standing.

“How do you have this much energy already?”

“There’s a game tonight!” Jamie was barely keeping himself from jumping up and down, "you should come!”

“There’s nothing I’d like to do less than that,” Avery replied dully, staring up at him.

Ever the optimist, a confident smile remained on Jamie’s face. He was annoying but at least he was consistent.

“Jamie!” someone shouted, pushing through the crowd of other students, throwing an arm over the taller boys’ shoulders; tugging him away from while talking excitedly about something Avery couldn’t be bothered to listen to.

“Hang on,” Jamie interrupted the person hanging off him, twisting to rifle through his messenger bag. He pawed through the bag for a few moments, in which Avery contemplated just walking away -- but he figured it would be less painful to let Jamie do whatever he was doing and then leave than try to outrun him.

Lost in thought Avery only half-noticed the object flying towards him, catching it out of instinct.

“What the--”

“You looked cold!” Jamie half-yelled to be heard over the din of the crowd, a cocky smirk resting far too comfortably on his lips.

Avery looked down at the bundle in his hands, recognizing their school colors. He unraveled the ball of fabric, confirming that Jamie had thrown one of his football jerseys at him.

“How is a short-sleeved shirt full of holes supposed to…,” Avery’s snark trailed off as he looked up, to find that the other boy had disappeared. With a huff Avery harshly balled the jersey up and shoved it into his backpack, continuing his begrudging march into school.

Avery pushed his way through the front doors just in time to witness a banner dramatically unfurling. Dread washed over him as he read the sign, which excitedly advertised that it was the homecoming game that night and anyone with a player’s jersey got in for free. Avery’s phone buzzed in his pocket, pulling his attention away from the banner hanging over head.

_ ‘I need that jersey back btw’ _

_ ‘I’m not going to your game Prescott’ _

_ ‘But it’s my lucky jersey gecko ;n;’ _

By second period the entire school was a flutter with speculation about the outcome of the game and about the location of Jamie Prescott’s game-day jersey.

Because of course he threw the most important jersey he had directly at Avery’s face, the bastard.

_ ‘meet me at the vending machines’  _ Avery typed, folding himself over his phone during his statistics class.

_ ‘why?’ _

_ ‘to get your jersey idiot’ _

_ ‘srry. will have a headache gonna go to the nurse’ _

_ ‘i hate you’ _

Jamie sent back a kissy emoji, which made Avery want to throat-punch him. Instead he closed his messaging app and slid his phone back into his hoodie pocket with a rough sigh.

The rest of the class went the same as usual, with Avery doing his best to hunch down and hide behind the girl who sat in front of him. He didn’t even know how he got into this class, lord knows his grades weren’t the reason.

So now he spent every class period figuring out new ways to avoid making eye-contact with the teacher. The minutes were crawling by like years and Avery couldn’t stop looking up at the clock to see how much longer he’d have to be hunched over the desk; pretending to be hyper-focused on taking imaginary notes.

After what felt like an eon the bell finally rang and Avery flew out of his seat. He slid into the crowded hallway heading towards the cafeteria; planning on hunting Jamie down and choking him with his stupid jersey.

But he couldn’t find him in any of his usual hiding places. The stairwells were empty, and Avery hadn’t seen him hanging around the rest of the football team, who were all proudly wearing their game-day jerseys.

Their lunch period was starting to wind down and Avery knew that there wouldn’t be another free period long enough for him to track Jamie down. It was then that he spotted Carter, one of Jamie’s non-football friends, playing with his phone by himself.

Cautiously, Avery approached him, “Hey.”

“Oh, hey,” Carter jolted up from his phone, smiling pleasantly.

“Have you seen Jamie anywhere?”

“Nah, sorry man,” Carter shrugged, “but he’s usually hanging out with the team on game days.”

Avery frowned, knowing he wouldn’t have missed the one guy in normal clothes in the sea of school colors, “Thanks anyways.”

“No problem man, sorry I couldn’t help.”

As Avery wandered away Carter pulled up the messaging app that he’d speedily closed earlier.

_ ‘ur being a dick. just take ur jersey back’ _

_ ‘noooo, that defeats the purpose’  _ Jamie responded.

_ ‘god u suck’ _

Jamie sighed, turning off his phone. He had dragged one of the library chairs off into a secluded corner, where he’d been hiding since lunch started. He knew he was being childish, but he honestly couldn’t figure out another way to get Avery to show up at one of his games…

And he really wanted to have Avery watch him play because that was probably the only way that he’d ever impress him. Jamie wanted to prove himself to Avery, to prove that he wasn’t just some brainless jock. To prove that he was a worthy partner to Wyvern… for whenever he eventually decided to tell him who he was.

The rest of the school day continued in much the same way; Jamie hiding away during study halls and sprinting to get to his classes to avoid being caught by Avery. The few glimpses of Jamie that Avery managed to catch made him angrier each time, because Jamie wasn’t even trying to hide that he was avoiding him.

By the end of the day Avery had given up. Resigning himself to having to go to the football game to give Jamie his jersey back. But he wasn’t going to stay for the game. It was just be a quick in and out.

Which led to Avery standing in front of the entrance to the stands around the football field, being stared down by a smiley cheerleader.

“Hi!” she chirped, grinning widely, “do you have a ticket?”

“Uh, no…”

“Oh! Do you have a jersey then?”

“Uh.... yeah.”

“Wonderful!” she clapped, “Just put it on and you can go on through to find a good seat!”

“Put it on? Why?” Avery asked, a thin streak of panic in his voice.

“To support the team of course!” she smiled, a little more forced. Avery glanced over his shoulder and saw a growing line behind him. With a groan he yanked the jersey out of his bag, pulling it on roughly over his head. Even over his two sweatshirts then jersey hung slightly loose over his frame.

“Is this fine?” Avery muttered, ignoring the gasps and whispers erupting from the crowd behind him.

“Perfect!” the cheerleader smiled, stepping to the side to allow Avery to enter the stands.

As soon as he set foot on the metal bleachers, he made a beeline for the front, spotting Jamie warming up on the field.

“Hey! Jamie!” Avery hissed, trying not to draw anymore unwanted attention to himself.

“Oh!” Jamie perked up, sneaking over to the bleachers, looking up at Avery, “You made it!”

“Take your fucking shirt back you shitlord,” Avery snapped, starting to pull the jersey off.

“Wait! Don’t take it off,” Jamie pleaded.

“Why shouldn’t I,” Avery demanded, glaring at the man below him.

“Because!” Jamie looked away, seeming to gather his thoughts.

“Spit it out Prescott.”

“You look cute in it!”

“I’m going to murder you.”

“Prescott! Get your ass back on the field!” the football coach hollered, making both Avery and Jamie jump.

“Ah-hah, well you heard the man!” Jamie smiled brightly, jumping back from the stands. “I’ll see you after the game yeah?”

“No-” but once again, before Avery could finish Jamie had bounded off; pulling his helmet on. Leaving Avery hanging over the railing like some lovestruck idiot.

Thoroughly pissed off, Avery whipped around, spotting Carter trying to sink into the bleachers a few rows up. Avery stomped up the stairs, a ball of fury burning in his gut.

“This,” Avery growled, tearing the jersey off, “Is for Prescott.”

He thrust the balled-up jersey at Carter, who gingerly took it out of his hand, “Alright.”

“I’m going home.”

“Okay,” Carter replied with a nervous smile, “Drive safe.”

Completely exhausted and totally done with people, Avery stormed back down the stairs, out of the stands, past the cheerleader taking tickets, and out into the school’s parking lot.

Pulling out his phone, Avery dialed his mom’s cell. Shivering in the light of one of few street lights in the lot, he listened to his phone ring through the line once… twice…

The third ring was cut off by his mom picking up the phone.

“Hello peu d’amour!”

“Hi mom. Can you come pick me up? I’m still at school.”

“Of course, mon cheri! I’ll be right there.”


End file.
